All Saints Parish Newsletter 23rd June 2017

Friday 23rd June 2017

Dear Friend,

'Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known'. Matthew 10.26, from Sunday’s Gospel.

The Australian (cultural) Catholic writer Tom Keneally has just published a novel, The Crimes of the Father. You can guess the topic. Keneally's cultural Catholicism, though it now falls short of faith, is more deeply embedded than most: from the age of 13 he attended the minor and major seminaries of the Archdiocese of Sydney and was already a deacon when, after suffering a breakdown, he left the Church. He records, as do others from his generation of seminarians, that no one from the Archdiocese ever contacted him after he'd left. Yet he retains great affection for the Church and its ideals.

He was not himself subjected to any abuse: he is horrified, of course, to discover what some priests and religious did; he is also greatly saddened by the resulting taint that attaches to the majority of good men who now find even their own people looking askance at them. The statistics are truly appalling: in one order, the St John of God brothers, it seems that 40% were abusers; among the Christian brothers, 22%. Across all clergy and religious in Australia the known and credible accusations account for 7% of all priests and religious, almost certainly an underestimate because so much abuse has gone unreported. Keneally has written this novel partly because a good friend of his who did proceed to priestly ordination, and was later suspended and exiled by the Archdiocese for articulating a surfeit of new ideas, predicted

two outcomes for the Church in its failing to address the matters of both paedophilia and underage abuse. One was... [that] if the Church did not face up to the problem and act according to its highest principles, the civil arm of society would ultimately force it to do so. The second was that a time would come when all priests would bear the opprobrium of the crimes committed and covered up. Both these prophecies of my venerated and now deceased friend turned out to be, as they say, on the money. (The Crimes of the Father, Author's Note p. vii)

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which began its work in 2013 has shredded the Church's credibility and morally marginalised its hierarchy for a generation, possibly for good, in a country already less than sympathetic to authoritarian institutions. There are no excuses for what has been uncovered. But the Church has compounded its failure by the cover-ups, and the cover-ups of the cover-ups.

'Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul'. The Gospel tells us that we have nothing to fear from the truth, and that it can never be hidden anyway. This is a difficult counsel for those who had to manage psychopathic abusers, who we now know feel no regret for their crimes and are therefore very difficult to handle in an institution which is premised on forgiveness and love. It is easy with hindsight to blame those who reacted inadequately, yet we can all remember a recent past in which this phenomenon was barely known about, let alone understood. But the core principle of openness and truthfulness enunciated by our Lord remains: we can now see, more clearly than ever, why that is true. Challenging as it is in practice, the alternative, of being found out later, is much more shameful and damaging than any truth-telling can ever be. All the more so in the Church of Christ, who came to be 'the Way, the Truth and the Life'.

This is the presenting issue of our time and it will be with us for a while yet. But it is also a wakeup call to us all: in the institutional church, in other public and private institutions and in all our lives, the Lord demands a higher loyalty and promises a greater reward than any cover-up can ever promise:

'Those who find their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it' Matthew 10.39

'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' John 8.31-32

Pray for the recently departed: All those killed in terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. All those lost and grieving as a result of the Grenfell Tower fire, Carole Capel-Bradford, Sister Margaret Dewey SSM, Stewart Laing, Geoffrey Rowell bishop, Iris Podmore, Leeroy Barrow and Vicky Wilmott.

Anne Flanagan is providing a glass of wine after Mass in the church courtyard for everyone to help her celebrate a significant birthday.

Sunday Lunch - John Forde is preparing a collation for a midsummer day with sweet course to follow.See details posted in the courtyard.Tickets: £5 each from the Church Shop before and after Mass. Please join us. EVENSONG & BENEDICTION, 6pmPreacher: Fr Michael Bowie Sumsion Setting in G for lower voices Wood Great Lord of Lords

FRIDAY 30 JUNE, 8pm – JAZZ CONCERT – DIGBY FAIRWEATHER’S HALF DOZEN in an evening of traditional jazzat All Saints. Everyone is invited to join Fr Michael in celebrating his Silver Jubilee of priesting – entry free but donations (with Gift Aid if appropriate please!) requested for the All Saints Foundation (which takes care of the All Saints’ heritage buildings). Interval drinks will be available for a donation. Please join us for this special concert at All Saints and bring friends!

SATURDAY 1 JULY, 1pm, All Saints – Beau Chant Voices - a visiting choir from Minnesota, USA, on a tour in London - will perform a short informal set of pieces from their repertoire of sacred and secular music following the Lunchtime Mass at 12 noon. All welcome.

The ALL SAINTS PARISH PILGRIMAGE TO WALSINGHAM will take place from Friday 21 - Monday 24 July. Places are limited. So if you would like to book place and have not already done so or would like to know more, please also contact Ross Buchanan (Mob: 07905 863578 or email: ross.r.buchanan@btinternet.com) as soon as possible.

ST CYPRIAN’S CLARENCE GATE, Glentworth Street, NW1 6AX – Saturday 1 July 2017 CELEBRATION OF THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF T S ELIOT’S BAPTISM (29 June 1927) with Bishop Rowan Williams & Bishop Richard Harries. Tickets going fast so get in touch ASAP!T S Eliot was baptized at Finstock, Oxfordshire. At the time and from 1920 – 1932 he lived successively at flats 9, 98, 177 and 68 Clarence Gate Gardens. St Cyprian’s was his parish church where he became a daily worshipper and where Viv, his first wife continued to worship after the marriage ended.

Programme for the Day: 10.30am Arrivals and Coffee. 11am Welcome and Introductions. 11.10am Poems read by Pupils of the Francis Holland School, Regent’s Park 11.40am +Rowan William: The Fire and the Rose: Eliot and the Incarnation12.20pm +Richard Harries: T. S. Eliot’s Conversion and in Conversation with +Rowan 1pm Cold Buffet Lebanese Lunch with Wine Church open to the public from 2.40pm. Donations are invited for tea & cake after: 3pm Evensong & Benediction with the Francis Holland School Choir4pm Tea

The morning and lunch is by ticket only (limited to 150). Price £40 – available from Fr Gerald Beauchamp gerald.beauch@btconnect.com. Tickets will be sent by post so please include your mailing address. Cheques to be made payable to ‘St Cyprian’s PCC’ or payment by BACS to 56-00-14/12138126 Ref ’T S Eliot’. Profits from the day will be shared equally between St Cyprian’s Church and Christian Aid. With regret, the church has no sound system or loop and neither are there toilets available for disabled people.

We have received warm thanks from all four of the subjects of our Lent Appeal 2017:

Firstly a letter from the Bishop of Edmontonfor our generous support to the Bishop’s Diocesan Lent Appeal 2017 – £1,622.50 to help extend church schools in Angola; help to build a new Seminary in Lebombo and a regional training hub with accommodation in Nampula.

Secondly a letter of thanks from the Soup Kitchen which also received £1,622.50 saying: ‘At the Soup Kitchen, we feed and clothe approximately 80 people each day. Your donation will go directly to our guests and we really, genuinely appreciate it. It means a lot for us.’

Thirdly a letter from USPG thanking us for ‘our very generous gift of £1,622.50 towards our community engagement and health work (UMOJA) with the Church of Zimbabwe’.

Fourthly a letter from the Marylebone Project thanking us for our generous donation of £1,622.50 to go towards funding Emergency Beds in the project: ‘donations like yours help make real difference to the women at the Marylebone Project’.

Our year-round fundraising efforts go to support three charities:

The Church Army hostels and programmes in Marylebone empowering homeless women into independent living. The USPG-led UMOJA, HIV Project in Zimbabwe, enabling people living with HIV and Aids to have positive lives, and The Soup Kitchen (American International Church, Tottenham Court Road) feeding up to 80 vulnerable people daily in central London.

Men’s clothing especially is needed by the Jesus Centre in Margaret Street and also by the Soup Kitchen at the American International Church, both of whomprovide a daily range of services to homeless people. If you have women’s or men’s clothes to give away, please bring to Church and leave at the Parish Office so we can continue to help support our neighbours’ efforts. The Church Army is now also collecting women’s clothes for their Homeless Hostel so all donations can be found a good new home!

The Soup Kitchen team (only part-time cover) asks: ‘Please drop me a line if you are planning to drop things off here. As always, many thanks for your support.’Soup Kitchen at the American International Church, 79a Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4TD T: 020 7580 2791 www.amchurch.co.uk/soup-kitchen/

FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS OR ASSISTANCE FROM ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET:-* If you would like to encourage others to take an interest in All Saints/keep up with what is happening here, please forward this email on to them, or to people you would like to invite to services or tell them about our websitewww.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk, which has a full colour 360 virtual tour for viewing the wonderfully restored interior of the Church – seewww.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk/history/virtual tour – before a visit or if unable to travel.

* If you know of others (near or far) who would like to receive this regular update on what’s happening at All Saints please encourage them to sign up for the email on the All Saints website – see the tab News & Events> Weekly Newsletter.

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